Reportage Illustration

Time for change (snappy sketching)!

I can’t believe that its been so long since I posted on here, the topic of this blog will give you a better understanding of why!

I have never been a very fast sketcher so snappy sketching has not been a particular focus. This is despite the fact that I do a lot of capturing things as they are happening in my drawings!- my subjects are very varied from weddings to events and special occasions to the development of places and capturing aspects of scientific research. You can check out some of my #reportage projects here.

In order to manage my time better and achieve a finished sketch more quickly I have historically turned to colour first. I love this approach but with an A4 size or more it still takes hours rather than minutes. Then a few months ago lots of things started to change. Well they say that a change is as good as a rest! I got a small studio; an additional job; I was travelling more.. You get the picture! Sketching every day was not going to be easy and pretty much impossible in the way I had been sketching. I started to take my trusted Duke Fude and notebook in the car and spend 15 – 20 min maximum ( often no more than 10) sketching before work. Under these circumstances, colour wasn’t an option and I wanted to create illustrations that had at least some identity with the place/people!

A preferred approach to snappy sketching :

My sketchbook is anything that has good quality cartridge paper (that doesn’t have to take watercolour) and is no bigger than A5 size. My current sketchbook for this type of drawing is an A6-size handbook with a hard cover.

I use only one drawing implement. My current preference, virtually exclusively is the Confucius Duke 55 fude with black ink. This wonderful pen enables me to vary my line width and add darks easily.

My preferred drawing approach is single line contour (at least in principle!). That way, even though I don’t have time for endless measuring, I can use the contour approach to get a reasonably proportional sketch. Sometimes, when I am in a hurry, I try to cut corners and it really doesn’t work very well!

Most of these sketches are done from the warmth and comfort of the car. Although people sketches tend to be on a bus or cafe. Busy street scenes have also been captured standing in the street.

I try to use simple texture and darks to add depth and interest to the sketch. This is even more essential in a black and white drawing.

I’m still keen to have a layering of foreground, middle ground and background to create depth in the sketch, using weight of line and detail to try to convey this.

Simplification is critical at this scale and I try to fade the detail out towards the edges of the sketch.

Recent Snappy Sketching examples

On the way to work

Top and Middle Mossley

Bottom Mossley (Manchester Road)

Around Woodend Mill, Mossley

Sketching from the street :

People

As you can see, there is nothing particularly new about the approaches I am using. But I haven’t done this type of sketching routinely before. It’s useful to have a range of approaches for different situations and this simple quick technique means that however time-poor I am, there is always a sketch to be done!.

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2 thoughts on “Time for change (snappy sketching)!”

I love the freshness in these sketches! I had a similar situation last month — often too busy to spend more than 10 minutes a day on a sketch — and I was surprised by how happy I was by some of those quick sketches. When you know your time is limited, you waste none of it thinking too much — just hit the pen to paper and go.

Thanks Tina and interesting to hear of your similar experiences. Yes it is funny how you can somehow be happy with the limited sketches. In fact, I think they have taught me a lot. These days it is important to me to be able to catch just the essence without over elaborating! Overdoing it isn’t an option when you have little time!